


Living in a Kind of Daydream

by veleda_k



Category: White Collar
Genre: Gen, Male-Female Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-19
Updated: 2013-01-19
Packaged: 2017-11-26 02:21:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/645485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veleda_k/pseuds/veleda_k
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neal isn't sure what June wants from him, but he's not worrying about it. Set early in S1, but contains some spoilers from early S4. (Related to Neal's family.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Living in a Kind of Daydream

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Flora_Stuart for betaing. Title is from "The Very Thought of You."

Neal isn't sure what June wants, at first. A woman with a Manhattan mansion doesn't need $700 a month from the government. The cruder possibilities cross his mind initially, but he dismisses them quickly. A woman like June doesn't need to pick up men in thrift stores. And besides, even knowing her for such a short time, he can tell that she has too much class for that sort of thing. 

Still, she's not a mark. Neal knew that at first glance. She's a con through and through, so she must want _something_.

After a short while, however, Neal stops worrying about it. Whatever June wants, Neal can surely either give it to her or talk his way out of it. And there's very little he wouldn't do in order to stay in June's “guest room.” Neal's always been the type to enjoy the present rather than worry about the future, and the present has Italian roast and Egyptian cotton sheets. 

The first few days are a blur. Luxury used to be Neal's natural state, but now it takes some getting used to. He rubs his fingers along the rich fabric of Byron's suits, so different from too familiar prison polyester. The suits are kept in a closet that he's fairly sure is bigger than his old cell. He sips cappuccino as he watches the sun rise over Manhattan. He sits, surrounded by June's impeccable taste in art and furniture, and feels something inside him start to grow whole again. _I have been starved for beauty_ , he thinks.

The dreams don't stop though. He had hoped they might, once he left prison. They're so predictable as to be cliché. Sometimes he's in a tiny room, panicking as the walls close in on him. Other times, he's climbing an impossibly high wall, and no matter how far he goes, he never sees the top. He wakes too early, shaking and unrested. Each time he tries to tell himself that he's no longer locked up, he's not trapped anymore. But the anklet feels as heavy as any manacle, and Queens might as well be Florence. He has to silence the frenzied voice inside him telling him to run, literally run until his legs give out, just as long as he's somewhere that's not here.

On these days, Peter looks at him strangely, clearly unsure whether he should ask. Once, Peter gruffly asks Neal if he's sleeping all right. Neal flashes a brilliant grin and blames it on overwork, teasing Peter for being a slave driver. 

Neal can’t imagine telling anyone about the dreams. (Kate, maybe. But Kate's not here.) Certainly not Peter. He doesn't even know how Peter would react. Would he give Neal a “cowboy up” speech, or tell him that prison is the price for breaking the law? (It's not, of course. It's the price for getting caught.) Peter teases Neal about prison orange the same way Neal teases Peter about his atrocious taste in suits, but right then, it wouldn't seem very funny. 

The other option, however remote, is worse, and that's that Peter would feel guilty. Or, if not that, he'd wonder if Neal blamed him for the years he spent in prison. Neal doesn't blame Peter for anything. He took all the risks with his eyes wide open. He walked into what he knew was an FBI trap because Kate was (is, always will be) worth it. 

Peter shakes his head and tells Neal to get back to work. But when he catches Neal dozing his at desk, he gently shakes Neal awake before anybody else can notice and doesn't say anything about it. 

One particularly bad night, Neal wakes up drenched in sweat, and even the soft sheets feel heavy and constricting. He gets up, splashes water on his face, and paces around his apartment before he realizes that he needs to get out. He walks down the stairs as quietly as he can, which is very quietly indeed. Before he can decide what to do next, he hears noises coming from the kitchen. He pushes the door open wider and sees June putting out mixing bowls. Whatever he expected, it wasn't this. “June?” She looks at him. “What are you doing up?” He regrets the questions as soon as he asks it, because it invites her to ask the same thing. 

She smiles at him. “Once you get to be my age, you'll find your sleep patterns aren't what they used to be.” To Neal's surprise, she doesn't ask what he was doing creeping around her house at three in the morning. Instead she tells him, “I'm making beignets.”

Neal blinks at her. “Beignets.”

She nods. “My grandmother was from New Orleans, and she made the best beignets I've ever tasted. I've never been able to recreate them, but I keep trying. Have you ever made beignets?”

“No, but I once spent three weeks as a sous chef.” That had been in France. “And I do like to cook.” 

“They're not hard to learn.” She eyes him carefully. “If you were planning to stay up.”

The thought of going back to bed makes him suppress a shudder. “Just tell me what to do.”

“You can start by getting out the eggs.”

Neal can barely remember the last time he baked with someone. With Ellen, probably. His mother hadn't exactly been the cookie making type. And Kate hates cooking. She likes to watch him cook, and he loves surprising her with new dishes, but there's a difference between cooking for someone and cooking with them. 

By the time the beignets are in the oil, both he and June have flour in their hair. June is laughing, a warm, light sound, and Neal no longer feels the weight in his chest. 

“We should take these to the park today,” June says. “Have a little picnic.”

Neal imagines sitting in Central Park with June, eating cold chicken and beignets, the two of them laughing under the sun and an open sky. “It's a date.”

June washes her hands and runs her fingers through her hair. “I'm going back to bed to see if I can catch an hour or two. I'd suggest you do the same, dear.”

The thought of sleep no longer fills Neal with dread, but he's still not sure he wants to risk it. 

June looks at him gently. “Byron had bad dreams too, after he first got out.” For the first time since Neal's met her, she looks uncertain. Both of them know there's a line here, and she's crossing it. “They passed, eventually.” 

For a moment, Neal can't find his voice. “Thank you,” he finally says, and the two words aren't enough. They can't capture everything she's done for him. 

She smiles and shakes her head. “Get some rest, if you can.”

Neal doesn't go back to sleep. Instead, he reads in bed. The blankets are soft and warm, and the room no longer feels like a cage. 

At first, Peter wants as little to do with Neal's life at June's as possible. “I'm not going to encourage you,” he says vehemently. But he slowly becomes convinced that Neal isn't conning June, and there are only so many times a man can refuse gourmet coffee and pastries.

June regards Peter with a blend of amusement, wariness, and slowly creeping fondness. Neal's telling her a story about a case they're working on that involved Peter bringing the suspect down in a full body tackle. When he's finished, June takes a sip of tea before saying, “You really like him, don't you?”

Neal thinks. It isn't a question he expected. “I do,” he tells her. He's always liked Peter, but now it's different. Now Neal knows him. He trusts Peter, far more than he should. 

June doesn't say anything, but Neal can see she's not convinced. And why should she be? She hasn't lived a life that's given her reason to trust the law. “I owe him,” Neal tries to explain, “but it's not just that. He took a chance on me. He didn't have to do that. He does a lot that he doesn't have to,” he admits, more softly. 

“I was under the impression he didn't approve of you living here.”

Neal shakes his head. “I've won him over. Or worn him down. It became easier once he realized that I'm not conning you.” June snorts delicately. They both know the chances of that. “Your coffee helped too. Apparently, the real world allows him Italian roast after all.” June looks at him quizzically at that, so he lowers his voice an octave and does his best Peter Burke impression. “'The amount of work I do equals certain things in the real world.' That's what he told me when I moved in.”

June smiles, small and knowing. “Did you tell him that the real world is boring?”

“I didn't want to push my luck too soon,” Neal says with a laugh. _It's going to be hard to leave this woman,_ he thinks.

It's a crisp, breezy evening when Neal comes home to find the sound of Ella Fitzgerald filling the house and June sitting in the parlor with tears in her eyes. Neal hurries over to her. “June? What's wrong?” A hundred terrible possibilities run through his mind.

She looks up and briskly wipes the tears away. “Oh, Neal. You must forgive an old woman being silly.”

“You're many things, June. Silly is not one of them.”

She sighs. “It's Byron's birthday. One of the hard days.” 

Oh. Neal sits down beside her, not too close and not too far. “Tell me about him.”

June smiles through her tears. “He was so old fashioned. He liked old jazz and the Lindy Hop right to the day he died. He said today's music had no soul. And he was _smart_. Never heard of a con he couldn't run. He got the fat cats who thought the color of his skin made him stupid. They wouldn't have spit on us if we were on fire, but we wiped them clean.” She exhales heavily. “Those weren't easy times. But they were good times, because we had each other. We never gave up, and it paid off.” She gazes around the room. “Now I see all of this, and it feels so empty without him.”

“I wish I could have met him,” Neal says gently.

“He would have liked you.” June gives a tiny laugh. “You would have been trouble, the pair of you.”

Neal stands up. “I know it's not the same, but I do know how to Lindy Hop.”

Light comes back into June's eyes. “ _Of course_ you do.”

They dance, and Neal misses Kate more than ever. She isn't gone like Byron is, but she's still out of his reach, not safe. Is she alone? Is she afraid? He tightens his grip on June, just a little, and she responds in kind. 

When they stop dancing, finally out of breath, June's tears are gone. “Dancing always makes me thirsty,” she says, pulling out a bottle of wine. “And Byron loved a good Chardonnay. Though not as much as he liked his whiskey,” she adds, a touch impishly. 

She pours them each a glass, and Neal takes in the aroma before sipping. He lets the vintage wash over his tongue. “That's wonderful.”

“I've been saving it for a special occasion.”

He frowns. “June--” 

She holds up her hand. “I know a special occasion when I see it.” Her expression grows wistful. “This house has been too empty too long. It needed a little life.” She looks at him with such affection that it nearly takes his breath away. 

Suddenly he realizes what June wants from him. Someone who can understand her. Someone who can see her for who she really is. Someone to come home to. He can see it now, because it's no different than what he wants. He smiles. “A toast. To sweet music, fine wine, and good people.” His eyes glint. “Even if they are a little bad.”

June raises her glass. “To good people.”


End file.
